poses no danger to the Island, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusettes yesterday told The Royal Gazette .

The 10,000-tonne, 425-foot Yankee class sub -- known as K-219 -- lies buried under three miles of water in an area known as the Sohm Abyssal Plain, said Dr. Hugh Livingston, one of two Woods Hole researchers who are hoping to launch a joint American-Russian expedition to examine the wreck and gather sea floor samples.

"That area is known as an underwater desert and the rate in which water down there moves to the surface is literally measured in the thousands of years,'' he said.

"The important thing to bear in mind is not the 500-mile distance but the three miles down. It may be close in a lateral sense'' said Dr. Livingston, "but in a vertical sense (Bermudians) have little to worry about; it's a pretty big ocean and any amount of plutonium from the wreck would've sunk to the bottom and would be immeasurable by now.'' Bearing two reactors and armed with 16 nuclear missiles -- each carrying two one-megaton warheads -- the K-219 suffered an explosion and fire in one of its missile tubes in the autumn of 1986.

Despite heroic efforts by her crew, the sub sank a few days later carrying four crewmen, 32 warheads, and about 200 pounds of radioactive plutonium-239 to a watery grave. A Russian investigative team subsequently found traces of the superdeadly element on floating debris.

American and Russian military officials said at the time they detected no radiation leaks in air or water samples but agreed the site should be monitored.

But concern over the sub's radioactive cargo resurfaced this past weekend when CNN and The San Francisco Examiner threw a spotlight on the possibility of plutonium moving through the food chain, potentially affecting the Atlantic coastal fishery. The Royal Gazette raised those same concerns back in 1994.

The Examiner, quoting a top Russian nuclear scientist with knowledge of the incident, reported: "One warhead was destroyed by an explosion that occurred on the sub when it was sinking... As the sub penetrated deeper denser water, other warheads were destroyed by the (high) pressure.'' There has also been speculation that Soviet sailors intentionally destroyed all the warheads with chemical explosives to prevent them from falling into American hands.

Plutonium, a metallic heavy element, is a by-product of nuclear reactors and weapons production.

It rapidly discharges radiation in the form of high-energy alpha particles and has been linked to cancers and other serious health problems; it remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years.

Dr. Livingston cautioned however there was no cause for alarm: "Nothing has changed from the last time there was a flap about it and the Bermuda Tourism office in New York was besieged with phone calls.'' And the sub he maintains, couldn't have sunk in a more fortuitous place.

"I have heard, second hand, the crew actually took action to take it there, and they couldn't have picked a better place to sink it,'' he said. "It's the kind of place one would choose if you actually made plans to dispose of nuclear waste in the ocean.'' Minister of the Environment Pam Gordon also cautioned people not to get overly concerned: "I believe as it stands if there was any concentration in our waters we would know about it by now,'' she yesterday told The Royal Gazette . "It's been ten years and we would have seen something.'' Greenpeace, in a summary of nuclear transport crashes, noted the leak of radiation to be 30 percent that of the Chernobyl disaster, and 20 times the radioactivity dumped in the Atlantic by the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland between 1971 and 1982.